George Effinger - When Gravity Fails

So I haven’t had much experience with hospitals. When the voices woke me, it took me quite some time to figure out where I was, and then another while to recall why the hell I was there in the first place. I opened my eyes; I couldn’t see anything but a dim blur. I blinked again and again, but it was like someone had tried to paste my eyelids closed with sand and honey. I tried to raise my hand to rub my eyes, but my arm was too weak; it wouldn’t travel the negligible distance from my chest to my face. I blinked some more and squinted. Finally I could make out two male nurses standing near the foot of my bed. One was young, with a black beard and a clear voice. He held a chart and was briefing the other man. “Mr. Audran shouldn’t give you too much trouble,” he said.

The second man was a good deal older, with gray hair and a hoarse voice. He nodded. “Meds?” he asked.

The younger man frowned. “It’s unusual. He can have almost anything he wants, with approval from his doctors. The way I understand it, he’ll get that approval just by asking. As much and as often as he wants.”

The gray-haired man let out an indignant breath. “What did he do, win a contest? An all-expense-paid drug holiday in the hospital of his choice?”

“Lower your voice, Ali. He isn’t moving, but he may be able to hear you. I don’t know who he is, but the hospital has been treating him like a foreign dignitary or something. What’s being spent to ablate every little twinge of his discomfort could relieve the pain of a dozen suffering poor people on the charity wards.”

Naturally, that made me feel like a filthy pig. I mean, I have feelings, too. I didn’t ask for this kind of treatment — I didn’t remember asking for it, at least — and I planned to put an end to it as soon as I could. Well, if not an end to it, that is, maybe ease it off a little. I didn’t want to be handled like a feudal shaykh.

The younger man went on, consulting his chart. “Mr. Audran was admitted for some elective intracranial work. Elaborate circuit implants, very experimental, I understand. That’s why he’s been on bed rest this long. There may be some unforeseen side effects.” That made me a little uneasy: what side effects? Nobody had ever mentioned them to me before.

“I’ll take a look at his chart this evening,” said the gray-haired man.

“He sleeps most of the time, he shouldn’t bother you too much. Merciful Allah, between the endorphin bubble and the injections, he should sleep for the next ten or fifteen years.” Of course, he was underestimating my wonderfully efficient liver and enzyme system. Everyone always thinks I’m exaggerating about that.

They began to leave the room. The older man opened the door and stepped out. I tried to speak; nothing came out, as if I hadn’t used my voice for months. I tried again. There was a whispered croaking sound. I swallowed a little saliva and murmured, “Nurse.”

The man with the black beard put my chart on the console beside my bed and turned to me, his expression blank. “Be right with you, Mr. Audran,” he said in a cool voice. Then he went out and shut the door behind him.

The room was clean and plain and almost bare of decoration, but it was also comfortable. It was much more comfortable than the charity wards, where I had been treated after my appendix burst. That had been an unpleasant time; the only bright spots were the saving of my life, all thanks be to Allah, and my introduction to Sonneine, once again may Allah be praised. The charity wards were not wholly philanthropic — I mean, the fellahin who could not afford private doctors were, indeed, given free medical attention; but the hospital’s principle motive was to provide a wide range of unusual problems for the interns, residents, and student nurses to practice upon. Everyone who examined you, everyone who performed some sort of test, everyone who did some minor surgery at your bedside, had only a modest familiarity with his job. These people were earnest and sincere, but inexperienced: they could make the simple taking of blood an ordeal, and a more painful procedure a hellish torture. It was not so in this private room. I had comfort and ease and freedom from pain. I had peace and rest and competent care.

Friedlander Bey was giving this to me, but I would repay him. He would see to that.

I suppose that I dozed off for a little while, because when the door opened again I awoke with a start. I expected to see the nurse, but it was a young man in a green surgical outfit. He had dark, sunburnt skin and bright brown eyes, with one of the largest black mustaches I’ve ever seen. I imagined him trying to contain the thing within a surgical mask, and that made me smile. My doctor was a Turk. I had a little trouble understanding his Arabic. He had trouble understanding me, too.

“How are we today?” he said without looking at me. He glanced through the nurse’s notes and then turned to the data terminal beside my bed. He touched a few keys, and displays changed on the terminal’s screen. He made no sounds at all, neither the doctor’s concerned clucking nor the encouraged humming. He stared at the scrolling parade of numbers and twirled the ends of his mustache. At last he faced me and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I said noncommittally. When I deal with doctors I always figure that they’re after certain specific information; but they won’t ever come out and ask you just what they need to know because they’re afraid you’ll distort the truth and give them what you think they want to hear, so they go about it in this circular way as if you’re not still trying to guess what they want to know and distorting the truth anyway.

“Any pain?”

“A little,” I said. It was a lie: I was drifted to the hairline — my former hairline, that is. You never tell a doctor that you’re not suffering, because that might encourage him to lower your dosage of anodynes.

“Sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Had anything to eat?”

I thought for a moment. I was ravenously hungry, although the IV was dripping a glucose solution directly into the back of my hand. “No,” I said.

“We might start you on some clear liquids in the morning. Been out of bed?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay there for another couple of days. Dizzy? Numbness in your hands or feet? Nausea? Unusual sensations, bright lights, hearing voices, phantom limbs, anything like that? Phantom limbs?” “No.” I wouldn’t tell him that if it was true.

“You’re doing just fine, Mr. Audran. Coming along right on schedule.”

“Allah be thanked. How long have I been here?”

The doctor gave me a glance, then looked at my chart again. “A little over two weeks,” he said.

“When did I have the surgery?”

“Fifteen days ago. You were in the hospital for two days of preparation before that.”

“Uh huh.” There was less than a week of Ramadan remaining. I wondered what had happened in the city during my absence. I certainly hoped a few of my friends and associates were left alive. If anyone had been hurt — killed, that is — it would be Papa who would have to bear the responsibility. That was just about as effective as blaming it on God, and as practical, too. You couldn’t get a lawyer to sue either of them.

“Tell me, Mr. Audran, what is the last thing you remember?”

That was a tough one. I thought for a few moments; it was like diving into a dark, stormy cloudbank: there was nothing there but a grim feeling of foreboding down below. I had vague impressions of stern voices and the memory of hands rolling me over on the bed, and bolts of blazing pain. I remembered someone saying “Don’t pull on that,” but I didn’t know who had said it or what it meant. I searched further and realized that I couldn’t remember going into surgery or even leaving my apartment and coming to the hospital. The very last thing I could see clearly was …